01/04/2011

You know that recently passed measure in California (AB 2199) that did nothing more than strike down the outdated, offensive language from the 1950s that had instructed the State Department of Mental Health to conduct research into the "causes and cures of homosexuality"? The measure that had almost no controversy, passing by a unanimous 62-0 in the state assembly and a unanimous 36-0 in the state senate?

Yea, well: Leave it to the American Family Association's One News Now site to mine controversy out of benign progress:

Beginning this New Year, California will implement AB 2199 and ultimately strike down the requirement on the State Department of Mental Health to conduct research on the "causes and cures of homosexuality." According to Veronica Esqueda, a renal social worker in Los Angeles, the measure will portray alternate lifestyles as acceptable and normal.

"I do think it's going to open up their comfort level, and I think it's going to make it more acceptable," she explains. "Obviously, I am one that believes that it's not an error -- you are born the way God intended you to be," she notes, adding that she believes homosexuality is a choice.
...
"I believe it is going to impact the conservatives, the Christians, and I think it's going to basically have a discrimination [effect] against the conservative Christian believer," she laments. "It's going to be just another way to silence [their message]."Calif. welfare code: Homosexuality inborn [ONN]

"Silence their message"?! You mean the message that the state should use tax dollars to hunt out an elusive cure for the 'mo? Because yeah: We're proudly and unapologetically out to hush that anti-science out of existence.

But again, it's not just us in the "radical activist™" camp. We're talking about a repeal that unanimously passed through a body of bipartisan lawmakers without incident or even much note. The AFA's crap-stirring here is not even an example of anti-LGBT "culture war" politicking, as even the vast majority of anti-LGBT "culture war" watchers let this one pass without comment. No, no -- this is an example of the AFA's all out spiritual war against every last aspect of an LGBT person's life. A war that goes well beyond the ballot pox or the pundit chair. A war that is in constant search for a cure -- some cure, any cure -- for the queer presence that ails them.